Talk:Hexadecimal time
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Does anyone have any sources on Nystrom's hexadecimal time system? What did his proposal entail other than to divide the day into sixteen hours? --W.
It seems that his works are published in the Franklin Institute Journal N°46, Philadelphia 1863. -- Peter 2005 17:16, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
"There are always 256 hexadecimal minutes in a hexadecimal hour and 16 hexadecimal seconds in a hexadecimal minute."
Does this mean that hexminutes and hexseconds simply do not apply to 256-hour days? It would make no sense to use a system of 32*256*16 hexadecimal seconds per day when you group bits by 8. Z-d 19:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
"Thus, the conception of hexadecimal time once sixteen hours a day implicates only eight mean longitudinal great circles. Furthermore, the congruency to the familiar cardinal positions of all the three pointers at 3, 9, 12 o'clock is deleted. In this format, the position of the pointers of an analog hexadecimal clock is identical to an analog 12-hour clock only once a day, at midnight."
What does this mean? I can't even parse it. I think it just means that, since the 16-hour clock covers a whole day, but the traditional clock only covers half, the hands won't be in the same position at the same time. If so, this has nothing to do with how many hours the day is sliced up into. -Dmh 16:13, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
This means that the positions of the three hands of an twice 16 hours hexadecimal clock are identical to the position of an twice 12 hours clock eight times a day: am 3H00, am 6H00, am 9H00 and at noon, just like as at pm 3H00, pm 6H00, pm 9H00 and at midnight. It's easy to understand. I restore now the former version. -- Paul Martin 20:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
PS. Also see: Hexadecimal metric system.
- I honestly don't find this "easy to understand". For example, are the hands in the same position as a normal clock once a day (as the article says) or eight times a day (as you say above)?
- If the day is divided into 16 hours (or is it 32? Let's say 16 since this is hexadecimal time), and traditional midnight is hour zero, then traditional noon is hour 8, traditional 6am is hour 4 and so forth. On a clock dial, hour 0H ought to be at the top, 4 on the right 8 at the bottom and C on the left. In this setup, the hands will be in their usual places only at midnight. But again, this is because the hands normally go around the clock twice in a day, but on the hex clock I'm describing (I have no idea if it's the setup the article describes), the hands go around once a day.
- On the other hand, if a hex clock runs from zero to eight and the hands go around twice in a day (or if it reads zero to 10 hex = 16 dec) then the hands will always be in the same positions as for a normal clock. Only the numbers on the face will be different. Again, this has nothing to do with how many numbers there are, only how many times the hands go around in a day. The hands would never be on the same numbers, since a normal clock has 12, not zero at the top (when I say "zero to eight" I really mean sliced into eight sectors, take your pick whether you put 0 or 8 at the top).
- If you put zero at the top of both a 12-hour and a hex clock (be it 8- or 16-hour, so long as the hands go around twice a day), then the hands and numbers will agree twice a day (noon and midnight). Otherwise, they will agree at 0 hour (midnight) only.
- This seems like an awful lot of nothing, really. Unless this is describing something unique to hex clocks — and as far as I can tell it's not — I'd suggest deleting it. -Dmh 05:31, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "Twice sixteen"??
What's wrong with "thirty-two"? --D.M., 12.107.67.3 17:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
